Overview

An electrifying collection of linked stories following a cast of characters navigating bodies, queerness, power, and sex—with radical results—from the bestselling author of Housemates. “These interconnected stories blitzed my brain and gut. Prepare to be shaken.”—Kiese Laymon, author of Long Division and Heavy A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2026: Playboy, Literary Hub, Debutiful, LGBTQ Reads, Electric Lit, SheReads/The Stacks, Publishers Lunch With a brash and stylish voice that implicates and confronts the reader, Emma Copley Eisenberg wades into the contradictions, joys, and violence of a modern world shaped by looking and watching, examining how our hungers can both hijack and crack open our lives. In the title story, a young girl looks to a group of fat women at her local pool to teach her about her changing body. In “Swiffer Girl,” a woman agrees to try for a baby with her partner, only to suddenly find herself haunted by the viral sex video that made the rounds during high school—a video indelibly tied to her own sense of self. In other stories, an obscure fat makeup vlogger’s strange friendship with a middle schooler forces her to reflect on her past life at a toxic beauty startup, a boomer retiree tries to understand her nonbinary child’s gender and polyamory, and a trans librarian takes a job as assistant to a famous science fiction writer only to find himself screening hookups on his octogenarian employer’s behalf. For better or for worse, these stories counsel, none of us can leave our bodies behind: they remind us what it is to be alive. As the characters in Fat Swim dance into and out of each other’s lives—and through and around Philadelphia—they seek connections and experiences that remind them of that fact, culminating in a reality-bending, tour de force finale, “Camp Sensation.” Eisenberg, whose fiction “should be studied by every contemporary author as the finest departure from the fatphobic hellscape of fiction that exists” (Electric Literature), has a singular vision, and Fat Swim is her most incisive and provocative work yet.

Full Product Details

9780593242261

Table of Contents

Reviews

“Eisenberg is attuned to every beautiful, terrible human thing: desire, shame, sensation, connection. Fat Swim is a lush, radical meditation on the body’s pleasure and potential. I know I’ll be returning to these stories again and again.”—Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House and Her Body and Other Parties “Emma Copley Eisenberg has a spooky talent for inhabiting the minds of completely disparate people. I’d accuse Fat Swim of being an occult collection of stolen souls made to speak in a book, except that all the narrators are funny, wise, and heartbreaking, and know how to tell a quick gripping story—which is a sure sign that Eisenberg’s huge skill is ultimately responsible.”—Torrey Peters, author of Stag Dance and Detransition, Baby “Some of the best short stories I’ve read in a long time—vivid, surprising, and pin-sharp . . . Emma Copley Eisenberg is a phenomenal talent—I could stack superlative after superlative here, and mean every single one. Buy this collection and thank me later.”—Kelly Link, author of The Book of Love and White Cat, Black Dog “Emma Copley Eisenberg truly gets life, putting details on the page like no one else—sexual identity and gender identity and fatness and thinness and love and heartbreak and family and Philadelphia—in her short story collection Fat Swim. I also underlined my favorite new term ‘my ex-best friend forever’ because oh, how I related. I loved these stories—funny and sad and deeply resonant.”—Marcy Dermansky, author of Hot Air and Hurricane Girl

“Eisenberg is attuned to every beautiful, terrible human thing: desire, shame, sensation, connection. Fat Swim is a lush, radical meditation on the body’s pleasure and potential. I know I’ll be returning to these stories again and again.”—Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House and Her Body and Other Parties “Emma Copley Eisenberg has a spooky talent for inhabiting the minds of completely disparate people. I’d accuse Fat Swim of being an occult collection of stolen souls made to speak in a book, except that all the narrators are funny, wise, and heartbreaking, and know how to tell a quick gripping story—which is a sure sign that Eisenberg’s huge skill is ultimately responsible.”—Torrey Peters, author of Stag Dance and Detransition, Baby “Some of the best short stories I’ve read in a long time—vivid, surprising, and pin-sharp . . . Emma Copley Eisenberg is a phenomenal talent—I could stack superlative after superlative here, and mean every single one. Buy this collection and thank me later.”—Kelly Link, author of The Book of Love and White Cat, Black Dog “Emma Copley Eisenberg truly gets life, putting details on the page like no one else—sexual identity and gender identity and fatness and thinness and love and heartbreak and family and Philadelphia—in her short story collection Fat Swim. I also underlined my favorite new term ‘my ex-best friend forever’ because oh, how I related. I loved these stories—funny and sad and deeply resonant.”—Marcy Dermansky, author of Hot Air and Hurricane Girl “Fat Swim feels strangely foundational to everything good that American fiction has been while being absolutely everything I ever imagined for the future of American fiction. These interconnected stories blitzed my brain and gut. Emma Copley Eisenberg is in that rare zone from first to last word in this wonder book. Prepare to be shaken.”—Kiese Laymon, author of Long Division and Heavy “I love the way Emma Copley Eisenberg observes the world so precisely, attuned to unexpected—yet perfect—details. Fat Swim is lush with physical life and bodily sensation, vivid with textures and colors and temperature. Funny, mordant, and tender all at once—this is the rare book that exuberantly inhabits the human body, in all its grossness and glory.”—Rachel Khong, author of Real Americans and Goodbye, Vitamin “Glittering . . . There’s plenty to admire in these offbeat tales.”—Publishers Weekly “Dynamic . . . [Eisenberg’s] bold, vivid stories will capture the reader’s attention.”—Booklist

“Emma Copley Eisenberg is attuned to every beautiful, terrible human thing: desire, shame, sensation, connection. Fat Swim is a lush, radical meditation on the body’s pleasure and potential.”—Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House “These are some of the best short stories I’ve read in a long time—vivid, surprising, and pin-sharp. Emma Copley Eisenberg is a phenomenal talent. Buy this collection and thank me later.”—Kelly Link, author of The Book of Love “Absolutely everything I ever imagined for the future of American fiction . . . These interconnected stories blitzed my brain and gut.”—Kiese Laymon, author of Long Division “Spiky, acerbic, and utterly addictive . . . a book as provocative as it is lush, traversing everything from toxic beauty startups to viral sex tapes.”—Playboy “Emma Copley Eisenberg brings a fierce and funny voice to her stories, laying bare the complications of loving oneself in a hyper-judgmental society. Fat Swim is a fantastic new release from Eisenberg.”—Chicago Review of Books “Praised by authors Kiese Laymon, Carmen Maria Machado and Kelly Link, these interconnected stories touch on queerness, love, and the body in all its varieties. Funny and moving, often at the same time, the stories mash together serious issues with pure comedy.”—The Orange County Register “The collection resists the erasure of fat bodies in American letters, mostly by giving us all too rare portraits of pleasure and desire. Grace Paley is in these pages, as is summer, and ice cream, and Ray’s Birthday Bar, and refusing to be defined in binary terms.”—Electric Literature “I can’t stop thinking about these stories. Emma Copley Eisenberg is one of the most interesting and observant young fiction writers on the scene.”—Andrea Lawlor, author of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl “Eisenberg has a spooky talent for inhabiting the minds of completely disparate people. All the narrators are funny, wise, and heartbreaking, and know how to tell a quick, gripping story.”—Torrey Peters, author of Stag Dance “Funny, mordant, and tender all at once—this is the rare book that exuberantly inhabits the human body, in all its grossness and glory.”—Rachel Khong, author of My Dear You “I loved these stories—funny and sad and deeply resonant.”—Marcy Dermansky, author of Hot Air “Glittering . . . There’s plenty to admire in these offbeat tales.”—Publishers Weekly “Dynamic . . . [Eisenberg’s] bold, vivid stories will capture the reader’s attention.”—Booklist

“Eisenberg is attuned to every beautiful, terrible human thing: desire, shame, sensation, connection. Fat Swim is a lush, radical meditation on the body’s pleasure and potential. I know I’ll be returning to these stories again and again.”—Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House and Her Body and Other Parties “Emma Copley Eisenberg has a spooky talent for inhabiting the minds of completely disparate people. I’d accuse Fat Swim of being an occult collection of stolen souls made to speak in a book, except that all the narrators are funny, wise, and heartbreaking, and know how to tell a quick gripping story—which is a sure sign that Eisenberg’s huge skill is ultimately responsible.”—Torrey Peters, author of Stag Dance and Detransition, Baby “Emma Copley Eisenberg truly gets life, putting details on the page like no one else—sexual identity and gender identity and fatness and thinness and love and heartbreak and family and Philadelphia—in her short story collection Fat Swim. I also underlined my favorite new term ‘my ex-best friend forever’ because oh, how I related. I loved these stories—funny and sad and deeply resonant.”—Marcy Dermansky, author of Hot Air and Hurricane Girl

“Emma Copley Eisenberg truly gets life, putting details on the page like no one else—sexual identity and gender identity and fatness and thinness and love and heartbreak and family and Philadelphia—in her short story collection Fat Swim. I also underlined my favorite new term ‘my ex-best friend forever’ because oh, how I related. I loved these stories—funny and sad and deeply resonant.”—Marcy Dermansky, author of Hot Air and Hurricane Girl

Author Information

Emma Copley Eisenberg is the bestselling author of the novel Housemates, nominated for a Lambda Literary Award and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Prize, as well as the nonfiction book The Third Rainbow Girl, a New York Times Notable Book and Editor’s Choice and a finalist for an Edgar Award and an Anthony Award. Her fiction, essays, and criticism have appeared in such publications as Granta, Esquire, VQR, The New Republic, and The Cut, and she writes the popular Substack Frump Feelings. She lives in Philadelphia, where she co-founded Blue Stoop, a community hub for the literary arts.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available